Chicago's storefront theaters operate on very low budgets. They typically put together a season, or several seasons, on a budget far less than a single Broadway play. Yet, time and again, the artists who work within those confines ensure that audiences receive an experience comparable to that of the work you can see in the city's biggest venues.

Take, for example, the current Steep Theatre production of "Motortown." Simon Stephens' intense howl of dramatic despair is not for the fainthearted — I found parts of it very uncomfortable to watch — but when it comes to the quality of the acting in Robin Witt's production, there's no better work currently on view anywhere in Chicago.

Well, Joan Allen is no slouch in "The Wheel" over at Steppenwolf Theatre. But still.

Actually, one other notable performance this fall is also in a storefront theater — John Judd doing a solo turn in Neil LaBute's "Wrecks" at Profiles Theatre. This is a prima facia example of what can happen when storefront theaters strike a deal with the Actors' Equity union, allowing them to draw from the broader pool of Chicago actors — which matters especially when you need an actor over the age of 40, when the non-Equity life for a performer tends to lose some of its charm and all of its viability.

Judd's formidable work mostly has been seen at the Goodman and Steppenwolf theaters, with occasional forays at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and to New York, as called. But there is something remarkable about watching this man prowling around like a big Irish tiger, just a few inches from your nose.

"Wrecks," which deals with a bereaved, middle-aged Chicagoan wandering aimlessly around a funeral home in advance of his wife's funeral, is best experienced in just such a scruffy theater as Profiles, where you can see the beads of sweat on the actor's brow and where the teller of the story is right up in your face. Judd is a big fellow — he virtually fills this playing space just by walking through the door. Grief can feel like a cage and you surely feel that manifested in this particular encounter with the unknown and the fateful, right there next to the 7-Eleven.

Even though this is a small production — one guy, after all — it feels like a step up for Profiles Theatre.

Ideally, this company will enjoy the same kind of growth as TimeLine Theatre, which is having an extraordinary autumn season, what with "A Raisin in the Sun" doing big business because it is one of the best shows you can see in Chicago at present, and it features exactly the same kind of acting you can see at Steep and Profiles. "The Normal Heart," starring David Cromer, is still to come at TimeLine this fall.

As the name Cromer suggests, TimeLine also has started working with formidable actors. Indeed, the performance of Karen Janes Woditsch as Julia Child in "To Master the Art" (which closes this weekend) had a lot to do with that production enjoying its commercial run at the Broadway Playhouse and recouping its entire investment in five weeks. The investment wasn't huge — the show came from off-Loop Chicago, after all — but recoupment still is recoupment.

Audiences in Chicago know their Chicago actors, and when actors working at the level of Woditsch or Judd, plenty of folks want to come see them in action, especially when you can get up close without making a mortgage payment at the box office.